The present invention relates generally to an optical system, and more specifically to an optical system adapted to take images from a 360° panoramic scene on a cylindrical, conical or other three-dimensional imaging surface or to project a cylindrical, conical or other three-dimensional display surface onto a 360° field of view.
For the projection of images onto a 360° screen, the linking of images from multiple projectors to one another has been implemented, or a wide-angle optical system such as a fisheye lens has been used. Such prior arts are typically set forth in the following publications.    Patent Publication 1    U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2004/8423    Patent Publication 2    JP-B 6-85019    Patent Publication 3    U.S. Pat. No. 5,473,474    Patent Publication 4    U.S. Pat. No. 3,283,653    Patent Publication 5    U.S. Pat. No. 3,552,820    Patent Publication 6    U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,282    Patent Publication 7    U.S. Pat. No. 6,597,520
For the projection of images onto the 360° field of view or vice versa, they have so far been projected from one single or multiple planes onto a cylindrical or spherical surface, or vice versa; until now, however, there is nothing known about the projection of images from, for instance, a cylindrical, spherical or conical surface onto a cylindrical or spherical surface or vice versa.
In this connection, as can be seen from organic EL devices, future display or imaging devices are fairly likely to have a display or imaging surface defined by a cylindrical, spherical, conical or other rotationally symmetric surface.